Man Posts Secret Video of Car Repair - Then Gets Sued

With the help of the non-profit group, Public Citizen, Cooney's homeowner's insurance company hired a lawyer to represent him, blocking a temporary restraining order to unpublish the video.

"If the defendant has made a false statement of fact about the plaintiff with negligence or actual malice, the plaintiff gets an award of damages, perhaps even punitive damages, but it cannot get an order requiring that the allegedly defamatory material be taken down in the interim," wrote Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen attorney whom Cooney contacted, in a blog post.

Cooney, who has not yet filed a legal response, has been summoned to a hearing next Monday.

In the meantime, the dealership has created its own website, Gatewaydashcam.com, with an open letter to customers explaining its side of the story.

Sowers, who bought part of the dealership from his father-in-law 10 years ago, said the video has not affected business. But he said he is concerned about future effects of the video living online.

The company sells about 300 cars a month and services about 80 cars a day, Sowers said.

"We may screw up, and if we do we solve the problem, and that’s why our customers like us," he said.